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Glossary
1678 terms

Glossary

Every term is defined twice: once the way a filing would put it, and once the way somebody would explain it to you across a table. The second one is usually the one that sticks.

Showing 9 terms

DCF

Fundamental analysis

Discounted Cash Flow — valuing a business as the present value of its projected future cash flows.

In plain terms

Its real output is a range and a set of stated assumptions, never a target price.

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Discount rate

Fundamental analysis

The annual rate used to convert future cash flows into present value, reflecting time and risk.

In plain terms

Your required return. Change it by two points and the valuation moves by a third.

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Dividend discount model

Fundamental analysis
Also called: DDM, Gordon growth model

Valuing a share as the present value of all the dividends it will pay.

In plain terms

The Gordon growth version is next year’s dividend ÷ (required return − growth). Very sensitive to the gap between those two rates.

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Embedded value

Fundamental analysis

A life insurer's net worth plus the present value of future profits expected from policies already sold.

In plain terms

The book-value equivalent for insurers, and a model rather than a measurement. Shift the assumed lapse or discount rate and it moves materially, which is why the sensitivity tables matter.

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Gain on assignment

Accounting
Also called: Gain on derecognition of assigned loans

The present value of the excess interest spread on a sold loan pool, recognised in income at the moment a transfer qualifies to come off the balance sheet.

In plain terms

Future interest brought into this quarter. It does not repeat unless another pool is sold, and it rests on disclosed assumptions about prepayment and default that reduce the spread actually collected.

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Human life value

Risk & psychology
Also called: HLV

The present value of a person’s future income, used to size life insurance cover.

In plain terms

What your family would actually need to replace, discounted to today. Far more honest than "ten times salary".

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Intrinsic value

Fundamental analysis

The present value of all cash a business will generate for its owners over its life.

In plain terms

What it is actually worth, as opposed to what it currently trades at.

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Lease liability

Accounting

The present value of future lease payments, recorded as a liability.

In plain terms

Frequently the largest single line on a retailer's or airline's balance sheet, and invisible before 2019.

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Value of new business

Fundamental analysis
Also called: VNB

The present value of the expected profit from the life insurance policies sold during the year.

In plain terms

The closest thing an insurer has to real annual earnings, because reported profit is depressed by the selling costs of the very policies that created the value.

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Indian stock market glossary · Market Vidyalaya